Are Smart phones really Smart?

Mobile phones are used for a variety of purposes, mainly to keep in touch with family members, conducting business and having communication access to a reliable source for help in the event of an emergency. Now that the phones are becoming smart, are these phones really smart? Since the indiblogger meet that attended yesterday, I have been thinking of buying a new ‘Smart’ phone. Though I won the ‘Spirit of Bangalore‘ photo contest there, I had to use a laptop at the venue to send my photo to the contest. If I had the phone with ‘smart’ features, probably I wouldn’t have to rely on the computers! Just to be sure about my requirements, decided to do a thorough analysis of what is my need against what is available in the market. Well, these are the points that ponder in my mind when I think of ‘smart’ phones.

1. Good Phone – Smart phone should be a phone before it can add the prefix ‘smart’ to itself. Take an example of the latest iPhone 4, if the calls are getting dropped intermittently because of a faulty design, do you think it is really smart? Not sure about the device and it usage as a basic phone, but my strong contention is that Apple made a fool out of all by hyping the product as if there is nothing like it!!! Well, point taken about their credibility and the kind of demonstrated innovation they have bought in the past. As long as the basic purpose of a phone is not served 100%, I refuse to accept it as the ‘SMART’ phone.

2. Better data rate – Given that we are living in the era of 3G, we do have high expectations when it comes to the rate at which data can be transmitted using the mobile device. Patience has no space in the modern times where in people can wait, everything has to happen in fly. In developing countries like India, majority of the mainstream cities have access to latest technologies. how about the second tier and third tier cities? We need to have our ‘smart’ phones capable of falling back to previous versions without having to make any modifications. After all that is a requirement on my agenda though!

3. Battery life – With the number of apps on smart phones, the battery drains out real fast. Android based phones are classic example for this. The current antique phone that I have is Sony Ericsson K750i which I charge hardly about 2 times a week! That is good enough for me for the kind of usage pattern I have. But I would expect a revolution in the battery life too with so many features getting into the ‘smart phones’.

Recently got to know about a new smart phone in the market called ‘One Touch Net Phone’ from Tata Docomo in association with Alcatel device and Yahoo! apps. I went through the specs and I found the following features to be really interesting.

SMS+ : A feature to send timed SMS, interesting isn’t it?

Dive In WAP Portal access @ no monthly rental or activation charges for downloading entertainment stuff. Living up to the innovation in breaking the price barriers in the mobile tariffs by Tata!

Portfolio manager – The specs talk about BSE and NSE. How about an option to get updates on foreign markets including nasdaq? There is an app by Yahoo! Finance already! Is it available as a bundle along with other Yahoo! Apps?

Conference call up to 5 people – Do we really need it on a mobile?

Apart from these, the apps part is completely collaborated with Yahoo! Not sure how many of you are aware of Yahoo! Social Pulse, a product that is close to me because the components that I work on are closely associated to this!. With Y! Pulse, you can see all your contacts updates from Twitter, Facebook & Yahoo! in one place. This is an awesome place to see all the updates from your social network buddies and respond to those as needed through one place instead of visiting multiple sites. If you haven’t explored, go ahead and check it out now!

Then this mobile also has Yahoo! Calendar – you can seamlessly sync data with Y! calendar on the web through the app. I store all the important dates there including friends b’days, anniversaries etc., using Yahoo! calendar.

The most important thing for me as a blogger is to capture a photo on the go and share it on Flickr! From there I can either chose to blog about it or add it to my already existing albums. Looks to be a good product for me. Anybody has a review on this? I may be interested in adding more apps as the demands evolve!

I am using a Docomo but my complaints were unanswered. My sim gave me a completely unique problem… Once i start my phone, i can make one call.. aft that call no more calls possible and if i had to do one, i have to restart my handset again… tried with 5 different handsets but with all it was the same. Aft 3 mins, the network shows 0 and i cant make or receive calls.. and funnily thoh, if i start browsing net on the phone, it goes on smoothly even if the network tower shows 0 network… raised complaint twice and went to the gallery only to know that they dont have any docomo sim in store for replacement and i should go back to them only after a week… repeatedly so…

the pathetic service let me down a lot… finally aft two months i had got a replacement. and for that too, i was made to pay 50 bucks coz i had never replaced my sim and my sim was bought in August 09.. and in that executive’s words, “Sir, your sim card doesnt come with Warranty hence you have to pay up”. I am just sharing my experience here, and the reason why I dont intend to promote their products any more.

Congrats Mohan! With IndiBlogger, it seems that you have a winning habit. Keep it going and shower us with more interesting posts… all the best :) and once again, congratulations…. next time we meet, for sure will cheer a beer in your name :)

Mohan Sir, I have mention in one of my post about Xobni For Blackberry : Xobni Mobile automatically generates profiles for everyone with whom you’ve ever communicated. Can u give me your views on to that??? I properly used my Nokia 3250 since 2006. Touchwood never had any problem untill recently it’s display gone so i had to bought Nokia 5530 Xpress Music. Happy this time also.. Hey which handset u hav?

That was nice :) Mohan I never had the chance to go through your full site. I did so over the weekend. Loved your site, to say the least. Some inspiration for me to have my own site. lets see how things work out :):)

Nice post abt smart phones. But really donno how far I can relate myself with these smart phones. For past one year, I dont use any cell phone and feel like I am living in peace. Though we have a cell phone, its mostly like landline these days and we feel more free from an addiction. Internet when required, phone to call dear ones is more than sufficient rather than getting addicted to these modern techie fundas,I guess.. I am sure I sound more like old fashioned, but just few years back, I have even won for fastest typing on my phone for SMSs. These days I feel like, have phone to just contact dear ones. All I need is full battery charge and full signal wherever I go.

There have been many times I just wanted to opt to stay away from gadgets, but haven’t been able to do so. I absolutely agree to the fact that life is much more meaningful without getting addicted to these technological innovations.

I seldom see people using Y! services these days.. It’s been long since I opened up Y! mail. I liked the phone because I get 450mb/month free.. Also, I get this with Tata Docomo… Its the best service provider I’ve ever experienced. Especially, the 1p/1sec to US/Canada.. Its awesome plan…

OMG! You’ve ransacked the product! My tech-knowledge remains at the ground level all the time….ha :) Reading posts like these is like opening a greek book for me….Best wishes for you too Mohan! You are already on the winning edge :)

Dude. Come on. I know this post is for that “contest” only but still try to make it non biased. You are actually touting for “WAP”. The technology died years ago. Same goes for yahoo services. That phones doesn’t even have Exchange or IMAP mail access. That phone is just a psedo smart-phone. And please get your facts straight. There is ACTUALLY nothing like an iPhone out there. Other smartphones are still catching up to the level of innovation in the iPhone. The “faulty design” issue was blown out of proportion and was never an issue. Infact, every phone has that design fault. That’s why all the rumors dies within few days.

Aditya, i have played with iphone 3GS, no doubt it is awesome, but read through it again… I spoke about iphone 4. Oh yeah, i like the kind of comment you make, haven’t come across many who can be so open. Thanks for sticking to your point!

Nice write up mohan, You did lot of research looks like :) And about requirement of conference call on mobile, It is really required. In my case I live in Bangalore, my brother in Delhi, parents in Jamshedpur. so using conference call we all can talk together. and that a lot of fun. :)

Very well written Mohan….way to go, but I am sure very soon you will write a post related to how smart the phones have become. The technology in the cellular domain is probably the swiftest when it comes to evolution…so lets wait a bit for the truly smart phone :)

Do look at some options from Sony Ericsson. I recently bought a Vivaz and it works like a gem… Comes equipped with a lot of cool features, has a good battery life (I need to charge it once in 2-3 days with a medium usage) and has a 8-MP camera equipped with HD!! The videos and photo quality are the best compared to ANY phone and is really nifty. The only disadvantage i have had so far in the phone is that it has made my digicam redundant!! :P

Well, it is a good digicam (Olympus). It has served me faithfully and continues to do so on trips etc. But since I got my Vivaz, its camera is so great that we are using it more and more than the cam! And you can’t deny that a camera on a mobile is far more convenient than digicam…

Hey Mohan… nice post or i can say ‘Smart’ post!! full description of a gadget!! surely worthy for those who wants to buy a ‘Smart Phone’… well i have a phone Nokia 1209 which has timed SMS facility!!! (hehehehawhaw) (The only facility my phne has)

there’s a reason for poor battery life.. A normal phone like K750i, we use it only when there’s a phone call/sms, which could be few times a day to an hour or two in max in terms of talktime, rest of the time phone will be in idle mode consuming minimum power. FOr a smart phone, we keep using it all the time, to check mails,tweets and so on. Hence due to continuous usage, their battery drains out fast.

Of course, this is just an explanation and not an excuse. Smart phone should be able to survive atleast 24 hours despite of non stop usage

Interesting…! But I could also figure out the voice of a person who works for Yahoo! Blogging…!!! (Yahoo! Apps; Yahoo! Social Pulse; Yahoo! Calender). When talking about good phones, I really don’t understand why you mentioned only Apple iPhone-4, which is not the only smart phone in the market.

Oh you are very lucky about the Sony Ericsson. The one in the walkman series which I bought after so much craze just put me to shame. It hangs for no reason, I cannot hear the other person so often and at times there arises issues which can not be solved by any other means but switching off and on!